Comindware: new business software with semantic architecture

I have found a new website Comindware®. According to the information I have, the company is founded by Chief Executive Officer of Acronis, Max Tsypliaev and Peter Volynski, who have impressive background in Acronis, Parallels and Kasperski Lab. As the name of Acronis tells something to me – I myself use this reliable backup and data protection service for years already – so I have some belief that this company can do something good as well. 

Comindware is set for business software development. Their first product release is set for October 2011 and they announce their first two products. This will be Comindware Tracker™ and Comindware Task Management™ (the last one is free software). This kind of software is not new to the market. There are already a number of cloud-based solutions available through a web-browser so Comindware is not unique from this point of view. No surprise there are people who already implement similar solutions because cloud + web is a safe combination, and all data is available from all over the world – all you need to work with the application is internet connection.

What differentiates Comindware products is, speaking of implementation models, the possibility of on-premise deployment which can be considered by Enterprise for the sake of bigger security. Still, first of all Comindware seeks to differentiate itself with the benefits of their new platform Semantic Data Storage™. Most of business solutions for task management, issue tracking, process and project management is based on Relative Data Base Management System (RDBMS) and use MySQL for query. Comindware denied this architecture and developed its own one.

I am more visual, really need to touch and see the application to decide myself weather new platform gives me new benefits and bigger profit. So I am looking forward for the release. By now, the pre-registration for the release is open and you can subscribe to the list. Some of the pre-release subscribers as well as the first ones to write a review on the application will get free license for the product.

I wish Comindware developers good luck. Hit me, guys! Meanwhile I am following Comindware on twitter.

'Hazare' Khwaaishein Aisi...

Perhaps this is the most sensational event of the century. The whole Anna Hazare episode has got me bugged. While I spent some time in studying about Lok Pal bill and the Jan Lok Pal bill, the study has not been elaborate enough for me to comment upon the ongoing craziness!

Few pointers:

1. Media is the biggest beneficiary - especially the news channels. They are making hay while the sun shines. Every channel is making sure their TRP gets high by giving adequate coverage to this event.
2. With due respect to P Chidambaram's experience and knowledge, I regard him an utter failure to make a convincing statement about anything. He just uses his English language very well to avoid making any statement. No one has the guts to question the man!
3. The country's youth has come off too well for anyone's comfort. While this is amazing, it is alarming as well - simply because this is the age of social networks and smart phones! Youth have found a way to fill up their facebook artifacts and flickr albums. The cause is totally forgotten.
4. BJP / ABVP / RSS have found a way to make a comeback. However, neither Advani or his team members have the sense to take this up on a political arena. They have simply messed up parliament's course and have caused tremendous loss to the country. They could have been more sensitive and proactive to take Anna's movement into effect in the right manner.
5. Small players like Baba Ramdev and regional parties have tried to gain popularity by supporting Anna in various ways (again more by words and less by action). Only TV channels got the benefit of these not the common man
6. What happened in Maval (police firing), in England (worst ever cricket play by the 'world champions') and in Mumbai (blasts once again) have been conveniently forgotten.

I often think Rang De Basanti (Rakesh Om Prakash) had a better message than Anna episode. It provoked few people - may be youth did not come out on grounds, but the message was very clear. It forced many to think and perhaps to act. Time for us to 'act'.

As I said before, corruption can only be eliminated by the people and not leaders. No lok pal bill can prevent people from inducing a bribe. Will you refuse to pay the cop Rs 100 if he caught you breaking the signal and pay the official fine of Rs 500? Will the youth stop drinking and driving? Will you protest against the institutions who charge Rs. 30,000 for admission (nursery) just for name sake? Will you protest when a petrol pump announces they have run out of fuel on the eve of a hike and they conveniently sell you the same fuel at 1 Re more next day? Will you refuse the policeman his Rs 200 for providing NOC to your address verification?

Anna is a true hero - we should try to mimic his cause not him!

क्या फर्क पड़ता है?

सच्चाई तो यह है की आम आदमी को कुछ फर्क नहीं पड़ रहा है की तेलगी या राजा जेल गये. राजा करोड़ों का मकान (महल) बनवाता है, आम आदमी अभी तक अपने घर की छत से टपकती हुयी बूंदों से अपनी आंसू पोछता है! २०,००० करोड़ रुपयों का "स्वाहा" होता है राष्ट्रमंडल खेल के नाम पर, जब की "हरिदास" अभी तक खून जला रहा है केवल भूमिकर जुटाने में! किधर फर्क पड़ा है यारों? फर्क तो facebook या कोई blog में पड़ा है - सभी लगे हुए हैं आग में रोटी सेंकने! कोई कुछ करता नहीं है - परेश रावल ने कहा था न "नायक" में - "politics एक गटर है बोलकर सब लोग भाग जाते हैं. लेकिन कोई भी इस गटर में उतर के साफ़ करने को तैयार नहीं है!"

Track it with Redmine

I have been a religious believer in open source tools. With an advantage of “free of cost”, they offer a pleasant experience to a technical team who want to exploit and extend the power of software. Open source tools are like clay, you could give them different shapes as per your needs. Redmine is one such tool that offers capabilities of online project management, task management, time tracking, defect tracking, knowledge base, document repository, wiki and much more!

Built on Ruby on Rails (popularly known as ROR), the tool is a blend of power, speed and flexibility. Installing and maintaining Redmine is a fairly simple affair – it runs on Webrick (Ruby server) and uses MySQL database. It is light weight and the user interface is delightfully vivid. Mind you, it is cross-platform and cross-database as well.

You could start by setting the application details and then creating projects. Users, roles and permissions follow a straight forward design and are pretty easy to configure. The power of custom workflow definition for each role simply adds so much value. The tool also can be configured to send automatic emails on a wide range of events. Issue (called as Tracker in Redmine) tracking is a primary feature of Redmine. Issues can be categorized into different types like Feature, Task, Defect, etc. Redmine also provides a decent reporting framework that can generate reports of various data sets. Active directory integration is also available so that you don’t have to duplicate usernames and passwords.

You could also manage news, discussion forums and activity tracking in Redmine. It can also integrate easily with popular version control systems like CVS, Mercurial or SVN that makes developers’ lives easier. Project progress can be tracked using Gantt charts or Roadmap. Most of the views in Redmine allow exporting in CSV and PDF formats, so that you don’t spend too much time in figuring out how to exchange information.

Redmine portal hosts a series of plugins, themes and add-ons developed by various supporting developers. These can be used to tweek the tool to maximum possible extent.

My team uses Redmine quite meticulously and we have started reaping the benefits. We are able to pull out automatic progress reports and some metrics that reveal interesting insights into our development cycles. Using Redmine has increased our productivity and at the same time gives substantial transparency to the management and sales teams.

My rating: 5/5

More about Redmine:
Author: Jean-Philippe Lang
URL: http://www.redmine.org/

In LinkedIn

Couple of years ago, I hit upon LinkedIn – I just created my profile then. Over a period of time, the portal has gained due recognition. It is now a placeholder for a ‘global professional profile’. In fact, I can foresee companies asking for LinkedIn profile URL from candidates than their CV/résumé.

My idleness in the portal before was a result of a myth in my mind “It is just another social networking portal”. It was not, it is not! In fact, it is very useful professional networking portal where you could hook up with your colleagues (current as well as previous).

I especially liked the ‘recommendation’ part of LinkedIn, where one could recommend a connected member or get recommended by him/her for a specific employment. The portal also has regular features of a discussion forum, groups, job postings and email exchange. While there is no ingenuity check on profiles, it is still a strong platform to connect to professionals. The portal has one other feature of ‘introduction’ where a member can introduce two connections to each other – and the network grows.

My rating:

4/5